Serving Water and Sustainable Biodiversity (C20_Indic Wisdom Series_Sustainable Lifestyle)
Water is the foundation of our existence. Every advanced and ancient civilization developed along waterways. Besides human survival and developing a healthy ecosystem, it provided both economic and political strength to the societies. Above all, being at the core of sustainable development, water lay at the heart of adaptation to climate change in the ancient days, serving as an important connection between climate system, environment and society. The Hindus were ahead of their time in making proper plans for water conservation and were well aware of how to keep water bodies stay clean. The following section of the grand Shiva Purana specifically prescribes and promotes water management, keeping in mind the serving of water to the needy, agricultural management, digging tanks, overall land use planning and forest resource utilization.
Read More
Learn Values and Benefits of Tree Plantation from Padma Purana (C20_Indic Wisdom Series_Sustainable Lifestyle)
By planting and utilizing trees carefully and economically, we can sustain one of the greatest resources on earth. We must not forget that we have inherited this country with its many resources, from our ancestors. The ancient Hindus made their advancements, proving themselves to be a highly responsible community by protecting the Mother Earth’s fragile ecosystem, so that we, the future generations can have a place that we can safely call home. Let us look at what they have recorded in their scriptures or in other words, what our ancient texts demonstrate to realize the importance of tree plantation and then contribute to it. For this, the following piece highlights some specific parts of the grand Padma Purana.
Read More
Legacy in Bengali Literature: Chandidas and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu
The popularity of Badu Chandidas lies as the writer of the legendary drama in verse, Shreekrishna Kirtana. Taking the Puranic tale of Krishnaleela with a notable influence of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda and based on the simple village gossips about Radha-Krishna prevalent among the masses, the story revolves around three main characters- Krishna, Radha and Badai (Dyuti).
Read More
Ramayana Parampara in Tripura
This is the third part in the series of articles on the Ramayana tradition in North-East India. The immensely rich cultural history and heritage of Tripura certainly brings forth the point that both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata had always been an integral and inseparable part of this heritage.
Read More
अद्वैत वेदांत द्वारा विश्व की समस्याओ का परिहार
चूंकि दर्शनशास्त्र विषय की प्रकृति बहुआयामी होती है अतः इस बात को कहने में कोई आपत्ति नहीं होनी चाहिए कि दर्शनशास्त्र के अन्तर्गत जो अवधारणाएं हमें परिलक्षित होती है, उनकी भी प्रकृति बहुआयामी ही होगी। यह सभ्यता बोध मनुष्य का मनुष्य से, मनुष्य का प्रकृति से मनुष्य का ईश्वर से द्वैतभाव नहीं रखता है। हमारी सभ्यता अद्वैतबोध के आधार पर निर्मित है।
Read More
The History of Bharatvarsha
The history of India that we read and memorize for our examinations is really a nightmarish account of India. But if Bharatavarsha is viewed with these passing frames of dreamlike scenes, smeared in red, overlaid on it, the real Bharatavarsha cannot be glimpsed. Amongst the civilizations of the world Bharatavarsha stands as an ideal of the endeavour to unify the diverse.
Read More
Limits of Language
Speech is known by the wise knowers of the Vedas to be made up of four parts. Three of these – Para, the Shabda-Brahman; Pasyanti, unformed language; and Madhyama, mental language – lie unmanifested in the depths of one’s being. It is only the fourth that people speak. - Rig Veda, 1.164.45
Read More
Philosophy of Language in the Vaiyakarana Tradition
The Indian conception of language differs in three ways from the Western: Language is speech, not writing (script); Language is a cognitive system (not, primarily, a means of communication); and Language is a constructivist system (not a representational one).
Read More
Language : The Vibration of Consciousness
Bhartṛhari propounds a cosmological thesis. The whole universe (or we should say the linguistic universe), consisting of two different types of things, the vācyas, bits and pieces of the constructed world to which language refers, and the linguistic expressions, the vācaka (signifier), has evolved out of one principle called the Word-Essence, śabda-tattva, the Eternal Verbum, śabda-brahman, the ever-exceeding consciousness of the sentient. We may discount this point as a theological or metaphysical bias, but there may be an important truth implicit in it here. Our perceived world is also an interpreted world. And this interpretation is invariably in terms of some language or other. Interpretation is ‘languageing’. Bhartṛhari believes that both language and the ‘world’ it purports to refer to (and this ‘world’ by his own explicit admission may or may not coincide with the external, actual world) form an indivisible, unitary whole.
Read More
The Language of the Indian Mystics
There are several ways by which our mystic-authors may (and actually do) present the so-called ineffable. I can identify at least three broad ways by which they accomplish it. This does not mean, however, that the mystics have been lying or deceiving themselves when they have been claiming IME. I take the IME Ineffability of Mystical Experience doctrine to be a warning signal to the readers (or hearers) to alert them against a facile understanding (a misunderstanding) of what the mystics say, such an understanding being based upon a too literal interpretation of their words. The words of the mystics are generated by a flash of inspiration and a similar sympathetic feeling may be needed in order to fully grasp their message.
Read More